Labor Caucus Urges Treasury to Ensure IRA Tax Credits Create High-Quality Jobs

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Congressional Labor Caucus Co-Chairs RepresentativesSteven Horsford (D-NV), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), and Mark Pocan (D-WI) led a letter with more than 120 Members of Congress urging the Department of Treasury to support good jobs by strengthening prevailing wage and registered apprenticeship requirements for the tax credits created in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

“We write today to encourage the Treasury to adopt rules that empower workers, raise wages, and set our workers up for success for years to come,” the Co-Chairs wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel. “The [prevailing wage and apprenticeship] bonus credit is the most important labor provision in the IRA, and effective implementation of these standards is critical to ensure that the IRA creates the high-quality, good-paying jobs that Congress intended.”

“That is why we urge the Treasury to adopt the following commonsense recommendations that will shift compliance to the front end and rely more heavily on workers and their representatives,” the Co-Chairs continued. “These suggestions will ensure that the award of bonus tax credits goes to companies who have set out to comply with the law, made a good faith effort to fulfill the conditions of the law, and whose compliance can be verified by workers on the ground through project labor agreements to the extent practical.”

Specifically, the letter urges the Treasury Department to:

• Treat Project Labor Agreements as evidence of compliance with the IRA’s prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements;
• Establish a front-end compliance monitoring system for clean energy bonus credit projects; and
• Further strengthen the Good Faith Effort Exception to the apprenticeship requirements.

A full copy of the letter can be found here. A similar letter was sent by Senator Casey with 30 Senate signatories.

The letter was signed by 126 Members of Congress, including: Reps. Alma Adams, Gabe Amo, Becca Balint, Nanette Barragán, Earl Blumenauer, Jamaal Bowman, Brendan Boyle, Julia Brownley, Nikki Budzinski, Yadira Caraveo, Salud Carbajal, Greg Casar, Sean Casten, Judy Chu, Yvette Clarke, Steve Cohen, Angie Craig, Jason Crow, Danny Davis, Donald Davis, Christopher Deluzio, Mark DeSaulnier, Debbie Dingell, Lloyd Doggett, Dwight Evans, Bill Foster, Maxwell Frost, John Garamendi, Jesús García, Robert Garcia, Daniel Goldman, Jimmy Gomez, Vicente Gonzalez, Josh Gottheimer, Al Green, Raúl Grijalva, Jahana Hayes, Steven Horsford, Chrissy Houlahan, Val Hoyle, Jared Huffman, Jonathan Jackson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Pramila Jayapal, Henry Johnson, Marcy Kaptur, Robin Kelly, Ro Khanna, Daniel Kildee, Andy Kim, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ann Kuster Rick Larsen, Barbara Lee, Summer Lee, Susie Lee, Mike Levin, Ted Lieu, Stephen Lynch, Seth Magaziner, Kathy Manning, Lucy McBath, Betty McCollum, Morgan McGarvey, James McGovern, Robert Menendez, Grace Meng, Gwen Moore, Jared Moskowitz, Seth Moulton, Frank Mrvan, Kevin Mullin, Jerrold Nadler, Donald Norcross, Eleanor Norton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Frank Pallone, Chris Pappas, Jimmy Panetta, Bill Pascrell, Donald Payne, Marie Perez, Scott Peters, Brittany Pettersen, Chellie Pingree, Mark Pocan, Katie Porter, Ayanna Pressley, Delia Ramirez, Jamie Raskin, Deborah Ross, C. Dutch Ruppersberger, Patrick Ryan, Andrea Salinas, Linda Sánchez, John Sarbanes, Mary Scanlon, Janice Schakowsky, Adam Schiff, Bradley Schneider, David Scott, Terri Sewell, Brad Sherman, Mikie Sherrill, Elissa Slotkin, Eric Sorensen, Abigail Spanberger, Melanie Stansbury, Haley Stevens, Marilyn Strickland, Eric Swalwell, Emilia Sykes, Shri Thanedar, Bennie Thompson, Dina Titus, Rashida Tlaib, Jill Tokuda, Paul Tonko, Ritchie Torres, Lori Trahan, David Trone, Nydia Velázquez, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Susan Wild, and Nikema Williams